Announcing The Finalists Of The 4th Wave Of The Insights Innovation Competition!

After several weeks of intense competition with 22 firms competing in the 4th wave of the Insights Innovation Competition, 19891 views and 2692 votes the results are in and 6 finalists have decisively risen to the top of the list based on votes by you, the global market research community.

Please join me in congratulating all of the competitors and the finalists. Here they are:

So a pretty wide swath of “buzz terms” were covered with a startling variety of approaches and technologies represented. What is most interesting (to me at least) is how this mirrors broader trends both within and outside of the insights sector: these folks are obviously paying attention to what’s happening and are building businesses that are positioned to tap into those trends.

What happens next:

For the finalists, they are going to present on stage in front of our panel of judges and the audience at IIeX in Amsterdam in February. This is a no-lose proposition for them: past participating companies have seen their businesses accelerate due to their involvements in the Insight Innovation Competition, resulting in funding, partnerships, new clients, and global brand exposure. For the single winner they will get:

Exposure to a large international audience of potential prospects, funding partners and investors, including the European Commission CORDIS (available fund of $75B), Lowe’s Innovation Lab, and independent venture capitalists and angel investors

A “Hot Desk 60”membership for one year at the Center for Social Innovation’s newest facility in the iconic Starrett-Lehigh building in Manhattan, which includes 60 hours of coworking space and 3 hours of meeting room access per month

An interview to be posted on the GreenBook Blog, viewed by 36,000+ industry professionals per month

An opportunity to work with successful senior leaders within the market research space

On February 20th one of the above companies will join Decooda, Zappistore, Raw Data and RIWI as winners and can look forward to rapid acceleration of their business.

For the runner-ups (and the finalists who don’t win the next round too), the news is still good. The Insight Innovation Competition is collaborating with the Lowe’s Innovation Lab to help competition entrants gain awareness within a broad consortium of global brands.

All participating companies will be vetted for inclusion in the Lowe’s Innovation Lab program. Selected participants will gain guaranteed organic funding through pilot programs with program partner companies, as well as access to acceleration resources for marketing, strategy, finance, and business development.

This was perhaps the strongest edition of the competition yet ; the quality of the thinking and innovation on display by all of the entrants was simply astounding and although they may not have marshaled the votes to get their shot this time in the next round of the Competition on stage in Amsterdam, we’re going to do all that we can to help them as well. Based on submissions so far, some may qualify to present in response to the Client-centric Insight Innovation Challenge and all will be welcome to try again on the next round of the Competition or to submit a paper for consideration for a presentation at a future IIeX conference.

The next round of the Competition will launch in February aligned with IIeX Lat Am in Santiago, Chile. Stay tuned for more details on that early next year.

Congratulations to everyone who competed and good luck on the next steps for each of you!

2 responses to “Announcing The Finalists Of The 4th Wave Of The Insights Innovation Competition!”

Excited to see these submissions and note that all of the winners seem to be focusing first on insight delivery and secondarily on technique. This should be a great set of presentations with lots of opportunity for the industry! It’s great to see the transition from stat based techniques finally occurring and even better to see methods that use existing data in a more comprehensive way. Also excited to see gamification finally being recognized as a way to engage participants and move grids and scales toward the past. This is an awesome set of choices.